


Christmas Cards

by Salty_but_Sweet



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: And angsty crafts, Cortana coaching John to try new things, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, Happy crafts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 16:00:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15464991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salty_but_Sweet/pseuds/Salty_but_Sweet
Summary: "Cortana was implementing her very much loved hard-light protocol and standing very self-satisfied looking near the table. 'You and I are going to make Christmas cards.'" Two different moments when Cortana made John do crafts.





	1. Christmas Cards I

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Halo belongs to Bungie and 343i.

"Chief!"

There was something in Cortana's overly cheerful voice that John knew would result in nothing more than a bad idea. He had just returned from a meeting with Captain Lasky where they had talked about the last mission against Prometheans and the Didact. As he turned around in the direction of Cortana's voice, he noticed her standing on one of the holopedestals in the hallway.

"Come on get that suit off, I have something I want to show you in one of the special workrooms." She said hurrying him.

"Cortana, I've to go to the War Games simulator."

"You mean the booking at 1600, I think that just got canceled a minute ago." The AI answered him smirking, making the Spartan raise an eyebrow. He was starting to get a very good idea of the person who had canceled the training session.

Not being in a mood to argue with a determined AI  (and being a tiny bit curious) the Spartan relented, "Fine."

* * *

Even though the Master Chief had gotten accustomed to many kinds of surprises, the scenery in the workroom still managed to stop his train of thought for a split second. The table in the middle of the room was filled with all kinds of red and green papers, scissors, glue, pencils and images – and something sparkly — glitter.

Cortana was implementing her very much loved hard-light protocol and standing very self-satisfied looking near the table. "You and I are going to make Christmas cards."

"Christmas cards?"

"Yes, you know, December, people have this Medieval – well technically not Medieval – habit of sending best wishes cards because Christmas is coming."

"We celebrate Christmas?"

"No-one in the Infinity does, but who cares, we can start a tradition, continue one actually, but come on don't just want to picture people's faces when they get Christmas cards from us."

John, however, could picture people's reactions already without the cards.

"Cortana… To whom did you think of sending cards? Pretty much everyone we've known is dead."

"Not everyone, there's Kelly, Linda, and Fred, Lasky, Palmer…"

"You want to send a card to Palmer?"

"Well no, but I'm more of counting on the joy of getting you to make a card more." She explained before continuing her list, "Oh, your buddy Arbiter… Halsey, she definitely needs one. Who else…"

John was eyeing the door and repeating a silent mantra of no-ones in his mind.

"That makes what? Seven cards. Damn, I hoped we could have made some more, well, if we just give them out to the crew." Cortana pondered aloud counting people with her fingers.

As he had (reluctantly) seated, Cortana started handing out craft materials to him. "Come on lighten up, when have you actually used your creative side – aside from combat moves?"

"I guarantee you any of the people you just mentioned would rather receive a Brute's head than a Christmas card." John said, his voice low and intimidating, stressing every word.

"You just don't have enough faith in our cards." Cortana answered casually.

As the Spartan had still not touched any of the materials, Cortana pulled out the last ace up her sleeve, "It's either happy crafts or then we are getting you dressed up as Santa and it's going to be your picture on them. Take it or leave it, Chief."

This resulted in a long silence during which John surveyed Cortana, trying to figure out just how serious she was about this. Cortana faced his scrutiny steadily as she started to cut the colorful paper neatly into decorations.

"You have a finished plan?" John finally asked holding back a sigh, still not too thrilled about the idea.

"No, but if it helps I have some models in the tablet." Cortana told him sweetly, caring enough not to be (too) smug.

* * *

 The afternoon was spent silently when the AI and the Spartan II cut, glued and decorated the cards.

"You can write them." Cortana instructed after she had finished putting excessive amounts of green glitter on Palmer's card.

John just stared at the cards nonplussed.

"You know Merry Christmas, Happy Halodays, something nice and simple. You have the nicer handwriting of the two of us."

"Have you ever even written anything by hand?" He had to comment to her, even though the question was carried by his normal voice.

"No." Cortana answered nonchalantly after a second of thinking, sensing his dry humor in the background. "And that is why you're writing them."

"And how do we send these?"

"Your team is here, Lasky and Palmer are easy as well. Halsey… I have to dig that up, could the Librarian transmit it? That leaves… Arbiter."

"Meaning?"

"I don't know where he is, he is your friend."

"Cortana..."

"Fine… I'll look that up as well." Cortana smiled stretching her holographic shoulders just for the sake of it and afterward leaning over the table closer to John. "Glitter would suit you."

John decided to ignore her contemplative tone, simply keeping an eye of the glitter pots.

"Mission accomplished." Cortana smiled softly after a moment as John putter the last card in an envelope.

"I thought that happened when I sat down." John prodded, surprising Cortana for a moment.

In the end, she just smiled amiably, "I always consider it only as a half a victory; the difficult part comes when I actually have to get you into doing something."

"And the cards?" John asked, falling easily into their routine.

"A small Merry Christmas for me when I get to record people's faces." Cortana was getting up from the chair when she decided it was only a fair deal, "And I promise I'll show those for you too."

* * *

 (Addition)

A few weeks later, Chief had mercifully been able to avoid most contacts with the Blue-team, except Kelly who had sent a two-lined reply, asking if the card had been a masked call for help, and stating that if not, she, Linda and Fred wished Merry Christmas for them too. Lasky had been silent, but John was positive this was only because the Captain had met Cortana. Cortana had the effect on people that after meeting her they came little less questioning of the actions people around her.

The day had been an uneventful one. However, when the Chief was returning from debriefing and waiting for an elevator he noticed his visor darkening. Just when he was about to call Cortana, a couple of Ghosts moved through the HUD pulling a Warthog behind them with a Spartan onboard. Cortana had even added some pixels running down the display to portray snowflakes.

"Merry Christmas, Chief." John had just enough time to acknowledge Cortana's laughing greeting with a small nod before the visor brightened up again and the elevator's doors opened.


	2. Christmas Cards II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Halo belongs to Bungie and 343i.

The moment he entered the room, he knew who he would find.

_No._

Before he even opened the door, he knew.

Cortana.

It was only a week since their last conversation. Or rather a debate.

Cortana seemed slightly startled over his arrival, even though there was only one reason why she would step out of the Domain, and enter an enemy territory.

The Spartan didn’t say anything, nor reacted in any way. He just watched his former AI.

Cortana seemed very nervous — unsure even. She seemed to battle with herself whether to rise up to greet him, but in the end, she held her stance. Her nervousness was probably more connected to whether he would stay, not whether he would issue an alarm and made her presence known for everyone else around the camp.

Even if it would be the only logical option for anyone else, UNSC or Sangheili alike — apart from maybe Halsey — John wouldn’t turn her in. He could almost justify the decision with the fact that Cortana would have disappeared outside of their reach the mere second he initiated the action and turned on his heels.

Cortana couldn’t be made cooperative with weapons. Cortana couldn’t be forced to sit nicely around the same table. Life has a habit of pointing out all the skills one is lacking, and now he was forced to learn the art of negotiation and peacemaking in record time.

Amidst his muddled thoughts, Cortana seemed to have relaxed a tiny bit, assured that he wouldn’t just walk out on her.

In moments like this, they could both be relieved by each other’s stubbornness, their absurd unwillingness to give up on their mission, on each other.

It was only now that John really acknowledged the random collection of rudimentary papers and pens on the table in front of Cortana.

His look seemed to translate his question. “Christmas cards.” Cortana answered with a slight waver in her voice, her hand fumbling a sheet of paper.

“It’s not Christmas.”

Cortana’s eyes softened at his expected on-point response. “It’s never too early to start. Historically the essence of making Christmas cards involved the act of rushing them during the night before, and spending the whole year trying to avoid that.” Cortana’s voice gained some of its normal confidence, even though her hands betrayed her nervousness.

John didn’t respond, the silence seemingly adding pressure on Cortana. “It’s the only tradition we have where we sit down and talk.” Cortana finished quietly, raising her gaze to meet his.

Maybe they could really talk.

He had tried that, on a more than one occasion. Before this, the new Cortana had refused to listen to any voice of reason. Maybe their last fight, the fact that flood was back somewhere out there, was forcing Cortana out of her shell, prison, or whatever it was.

Against all common sense, John sat down on the other side of the worn-out table; he could immediately catch the glimpse of Cortana’s relieved shift in stance.

The Spartan took a piece of tarnished paper. He wasn’t going to craft anything any more than on that very different occasion a lifetime or two ago. Deep down he knew that he wasn’t supposed to be surprised by Cortana’s ability to organize situations like this, but in an unattended feeling, he was impressed.

Cortana had taken the notion to start folding her piece of paper, back and forth, her hands following some mathematical pattern.

“I’m sorry.” Cortana began, raising her gaze only for a second from her work. “We shouldn’t be fighting.” She said it in a matter-a-fact tone, like she would have explained the laws of nature.

John only observed her, even if he didn’t know whether it could provide him anything new. He had seen — fought against — flood only a month back. He had seen his nightmares re-surged in front of him. He had felt the terror of witnessing the spreading of something he thought they both had managed to save humanity from.

_Had saved her from._

She had to know.

Had to know that the flood was back.

With the Domain, with her ability to manifest herself anywhere and keep the UNSC as a pawn to hop around the board, she had to know.

But for some reason, she gave a very clear impression that she didn’t.

Cortana had appeared perplexed by his first question, and then downright appalled that he was claiming such a thing. That he would use a scheme like that to get to her. Because nothing, according to her, nothing, in her numerous logs about him, gave any indication of his head on with the flood. The exact dates, times and location were only countered with information about a battle against a minor Covenant faction.

_He could tell the difference between Covenant soldiers and the flood_.

If Cortana didn’t know about the flood attack, she did know at least that.

And they both could read each other in a way only minds that have worked in tandem through infinite life-and-death situations could. Cortana had to see that he wasn’t lying, making this up just to bait her. And he… He was sure — wanted to be sure — that Cortana didn’t feign her ignorance, that she really was unaware of the new galactic level danger.

And, that only left the one question in his head, _why_.

Before John had had the opportunity to question Cortana further, she had completely shunned down. Cortana had debated with him to the bone that he was mistaken, misled to believe, and when he had been just as steadfast as she, Cortana had created a fight and left.

_In some twisted way, it gave him hope._

Hope, that the apparition of a young woman playing with the piece of paper opposite to him right now, might be his Cortana.

Of course, that wasn’t a logical or a Spartan way of thought. He should have been more worried than ever that the evil mastermind trying to cause genocide was even less aware of what she was doing than before thought. Maybe that was the reason he hadn’t talked to anyone about the revelation yet. Because, behind his need to help Cortana out of this mess, he could recognize that others wouldn’t see the situation in the same light. Halsey was his first option, but he needed to gain more insight for himself first.

He just didn’t know how to do that without hitting the invisible minefield.

So, he took a piece of paper and scissors in his hands.

Cortana snorted an unbelieving laugh, tinted with a nervous edge. “You are becoming too easy.”

It was meant as a good-hearted jibe, but the circumstances around them left the notion with a bittersweet tone that shadowed both of their minds.

John cut the paper tidily in half. He wasn’t much a writer, or a decorator, but tearing pieces apart he could do.

“You are going to give miniature cards?” Cortana questioned, folding her second glue-to-the-card origami frag grenade.

“I’m not making these.”

Cortana laughed wryly, “You better; I doubt they want cards from me anymore. More than that, I think, I should make some ‘I’m sorry, not sorry, for trying to save the galaxy’ –cards.”

John just looked at her again.

“There won’t be any card giving if we don’t stop the flood.”

Cortana sighed at his statement, stopping the folding and putting the paper back on the table, so much for quality-time happy crafts.

“I don’t see it.”

It wasn’t an argument, just a disagreement.

Cortana placed few strands of hair behind her ear, shaking her head slowly. “I just don’t see it.”

She sounded even slightly apologetic, sorry that she wasn’t falling for his plan, sorry that she didn’t understand his theories.

It was unbelievable, in some sense, that he was contemplating with an AI that had presumably killed millions of people and was trying to take control of the entire universe in a more easy-going manner than others have small talk at cocktail parties. Not to mention, that they were contemplating whether an alien parasite being was or was not gaining ground in the edge of the galaxy right at the same time. 

_Maybe with their history together, anything less would have been too low-key_.

“I have.” John said, his own voice taking an uncharacteristically matching tint of apologizing tone.

He watched as Cortana shook her head again as if denying the situation. She didn’t meet his gaze and watched something in the distance he was unable to see.

John wasn’t sure on what to say. He doubted that pressing the issue would do any good, but they were running out of time with every hour they spent in this stalemate. They couldn’t fight the Created and the flood at the same time. More than that they needed Cortana at their side. _He_ needed Cortana at _his_ side.

Before he found something to say Cortana’s head shaking had intensified to an anxious degree; a sign that intensified his notion that something was clearly very wrong. That something in Cortana was discordant unnaturally strongly with the facts he had presented and she was trying to process.

“Cortana.”

His call had the typical effect by waking his former companion from her thoughts but the distress — the uncharacteristic uncertainty — seemed to remain on her features.

They both were woken from their thoughts by the faint sound of Kelly’s footsteps some distance away. They glanced towards the door, knowing that the liberty they had taken was coming to a close.

John couldn’t just let Cortana leave and escape the conversation, but there wasn’t anything he could do when Kelly was approaching.

To his surprise, Cortana came to meet him halfway. “I will help you with flood, with all means necessary.” Cortana concluded with such characteristic finality that John had no choice at that moment but to believe her. “With the flood, I will…” Cortana repeated, more so making some unknown goal for herself. She did take a long considering look on him, clearly not being fully convinced of the situation, before disappearing into thin air.

Never a person to stay idle, John quickly gathered the make-shift craft materials and hid them in a locker before Kelly’s steps reached the door.

It wasn’t Christmas yet, so they might still have time.


End file.
